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June 4, 2015 12:00 pm
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/ywkhN4fNAlA/mystery-moon-swirls-caused-by-blasts-of-comet-gas
Mystery Moon Swirls Caused By Blasts of Comet Gas?
astroengine writes: Strange bright swirls have long been known to exist on the moon's surface and their origin is steeped in mystery. Often stretching thousands of miles across the lunar landscape, scientists have tried to make connections with the elegant curved shapes with the moon's interior magnetism or interactions between moon dirt and the solar wind, but these explanations have fallen short. Now, inspired by the Apollo moon landings and armed with a powerful computer model, researchers at Brown University think they have an alternative answer for these swirly patterns. Over the past 100 million years, many small comets impacted the moon's pockmarked surface. Along with the icy nuclei that carved craters into the moon rock, the gaseous comet atmospheres — known as a comet's coma — would have also blasted into the moon's uppermost layer of regolith, possibly leaving the swirly imprint. "We think this makes a pretty strong case that the swirls represent remnants of cometary collisions," said planetary geoscientist Peter Schultz, at Brown University.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/ywkhN4fNAlA/mystery-moon-swirls-caused-by-blasts-of-comet-gas
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